The Forest
by The Shawn
Summary: An Ichiruki work based around symbolism. Technically a romance, but only in the lightest sense of the word. Written in the present tense. Just a warning as some people truly dislike the present tense for storytelling.


The Forest

He is surrounded by darkness and trees, trees that are seemingly made of shadow; passing in and out of his sight, ephemeral. He is being hounded by something. It is a creature without a name, a creature of nothing but pain, longing, and hunger. The worst, though, is the rain. It clouds his sight, as the clouds obscure the sky, making the nightmarish landscape into something truly grotesque. He is afraid.

He runs from the creature, weaving through the trees. The trees are obstacles for him, but not for it. He knows that they're real; he can feel them as he runs past them; the leaves, the twigs, sometimes the rough bark itself when he stumbles, brushing against it. Yet when he chances a look over his shoulder, they are gone. They serve only to slow him; the beast can still travel, unimpeded by the monstrous trees. He can't see it, but he knows that it's gaining on him. It's only a matter of time.

The rain is hurting him; he wishes it would stop.

The trees are getting taller and they seem as if they're growing closer together. It takes more time to get past them; it takes too much time. In desperation he looks over his shoulder again and he sees it. It's only an indistinct figure of red and white on the horizon but _it is_ _there_. He begins to panic, to make mistakes. It takes longer than it should to find the paths through the leafy nemeses all around him. The trees grow greater still.

The rain hurts so much; he wishes to God that it would stop.

There are other creatures with him, within this forest of nightmares. He cannot meet with them. He knows that if he does, the nameless Beast chasing him, the one that truly frightens him, the one that will consume him, will grow closer still. Sometimes he can glimpse them, racing through the trees alongside him. There are two he knows of for sure. There is the great bat flying above the trees, always out of reach, and there is the panther that screams from the shadows. The panther is closest, it is dangerous, but he cannot fear it. All of his fear is directed at the Beast behind him.

If only the rain didn't hurt so deeply. He could stand it then.

He comes to an area where the trees are so dense that he has only two paths forward to take, but he cannot decide which will lead him to safety. He cannot decide, and the Beast draws closer. As he nears the verge of absolute terror, a butterfly glides out from among the trees. It captivates him; in it he senses something absent from the rest of this forest; it has no intent to harm him. It begins to fly down the leftmost of the two paths, and so he follows. He has no better way to make the decision, and the butterfly is a welcome distraction from the Beast.

The rain doesn't trouble him as much on this path, following the butterfly. It gives him something real to focus on, to draw his mind away from the rain and the Beast; it gives him a purpose.

The path that the butterfly takes is distorted in shape, twisting and curving among the trees. He soon loses all sense of direction. He begins to feel uneasy again, so he looks over his shoulder, knowing what is following him. It is not there. Instead, for the first time, the trees are still present; they are shielding him from the beast! The butterfly is more than just a distraction it seems, it is his savior. The other creatures, the bat and the panther, now delay him sometimes, crossing his path and startling him, making him pause. This doesn't matter though. The butterfly has led him away from the beast, he is safe.

As this thought enters his head, something takes hold of his arm from the side. It is the beast. The butterfly has not led him down a path to safety, but rather the path back to the beast itself. The Monster takes hold of his throat. He can no longer fight it, can no longer run. The trees around him seem to be of enormous height. They seem as if they are pressing against him, suffocating him, but of course, that is the Monster.

It is growing so dark and the rain so heavy. The rain hurts so much. It's as if needles are burrowing into his heart.

As his vision fades, he sees the moon peaking through the clouds. He can't explain why, but he's glad, indescribably overjoyed, that this is the last thing that he'll see before the Monster consumes him. It is a beautiful full moon, as white as polished ivory and nearly as bright as the sun. As it fully manifests in a break in the clouds, the rain finally stops. This too fills him with joy; an end to the accursed rain.

As he is about to fall into the void of unconsciousness, a moonbeam of impossible intensity illuminates the Monster. Now that he can see it, he realized that it isn't a Monster though; it's nothing but a pitiful beast incapable of feeling anything beyond its own hunger and longing. He drives it back into the trees with a shout, back into the shadows. He looks up at the moon, and smiles. He turns around to continue along the path and-

"Ichigo, are you alright?" she asks with a worried expression on her face. He realizes that he is standing in the middle of his room; he must have stood in his sleep, in his terror. "You were shouting," she continues.

"Yeah," he says, "just a bad dream, but it ended up alright in the end." She turns to leave, but he calls her name. "Yes, Ichigo?" she asks.

"Thank you, Rukia."


End file.
